At trial, Madoff in video says Wall Street fraud almost impossible

Jurors in the trial of five former Bernard Madoff employees were shown video clips of the con man telling participants at a conference in 2007 that fraud on Wall Street was "virtually impossible."

The clips, played Monday in federal court in Manhattan, are intended to show the jury Madoff's skills as a liar and back the defense claim that Madoff duped his former inner circle into aiding his $17.5 billion Ponzi scheme.

In the first clip, shown by Eric Breslin, a lawyer for Joann Crupi, who managed large accounts in the investment advisory business, Madoff compares regulators to children who "roll their eyes" when being told what they need to do. In the second clip, Madoff says that in the current regulatory environment, fraud on Wall Street is "virtually impossible."

In the third video, Madoff says regulatory problems can potentially be solved if you "take the human being out of the equation," though he said later that computers could also be manipulated.

The criminal trial is the first stemming from the scheme, which collapsed after Madoff's arrest in December 2008 revealed that his investment unit hoarded customer cash instead of using it to buy securities.

The other defendants are Daniel Bonventre, who ran Madoff's broker-dealer unit; Annette Bongiorno, who ran the investment advisory business; and computer programmers Jerome O'Hara and George Perez, accused of writing code to automate the creation of fake account statements.